With her bare feet, laughing
by Lyrastales
Summary: "Will I always feel this way? So empty, so estranged?" After the war, Harry finds it hard to leave the past behind.


The room is grey and dark except for a beam of yellow light extending from the windowsill across the carpet and the corner of his bed. Beyond the window are shouts and the occasional laugh, accompanying the thwack of a Quaffle on glove.

Harry knows that if he pulled aside the curtain, he'd see them all there: Charlie, Bill, Fleur, Percy, even George. And Ginny. He doesn't need to look to know the way she swoops around the garden on her broomstick, ponytail gleaming in the sun. Every time he sees her, he's struck by how beautiful she is, like a vision from another world. Which is exactly what she is. They are in different worlds now, and Harry's is in darkness.

He knows that Mr Weasley is watching through the window in the shed, where he is messing around with some plugs. Mrs Weasley is in the kitchen, or perhaps picking tomatoes at the bottom of the garden, keeping an eye out for stray gnomes. They may be weary, more lined about the mouth, but they are still living: still able to go on with life despite everything they've lost.

Only he cannot go on.

When he woke from that first deep sleep, something was missing inside him. Ron and Hermione had been full of energy, ready to dash around the world and retrieve Hermione's parents; so desperate to be away, in fact, that they barely waited to hug him goodbye. Harry himself had felt hollow.

He understands; of course he does. Hermione must have been frantic to bring her parents back - those parents whom she sacrificed for their own good, and for Harry's.

Hermione still has parents. Ron has parents and most of his family left.

Harry?

Harry has _friends_.

People think it should be enough. They feel sorry for him; he can see it in their eyes. But they offer themselves whenever he lets them into the room, as if to say, "I know you're hurting - let me help."

Nobody can help. Why won't they understand this?

He's lost them all. When he closes his eyes, his mother smiles sadly and his father reaches out for him. Remus and Tonks lie side by side in death; Remus offers to run away and help him fight Voldemort. Sirius huddles, eyes shiny with alcohol, in his tomb of a home. Dumbledore falls from the tower, over and over. The life pumps from Severus Snape and those last, desperate memories replay and replay.

So much death. How can he possibly find life, when all he can think of is death?

The window rattles. He tries to ignore it, but it happens again, and again.

Slowly, he drags his limbs off the bed and stumbles to the window. There's one more rattle before he reaches for the curtain and pulls it back.

He shields his eyes from the brightness streaming into the room, and there, hovering in the middle of the light like an angel, is Ginny. It's a moment before he can make out her features, but he'd know her anywhere, even if she were reduced to nothing but the dot he followed on the Marauders' Map for so long.

She places a hand against the glass, and slowly, as if drawn by a thread running through the window, he brings up his own hand to mirror hers. Separated from her by the thin pane, he is reminded of a sensation he'd almost forgotten: her warmth against his skin.

"Come out," she mouths.

He shakes his head, a small movement that perhaps she doesn't notice, because she repeats her plea.

"Come out!"

The window is almost invisible, but it feels thicker than a prison wall. How could he, in his world of death, find his way out to her? He shakes his head again.

This time her jaw trembles. "Harry," she says, her voice faint through the glass, "please."

He can't drag his gaze from her face, can't pull his hand away from hers, so he lets the curtain fall between them.

* * *

><p>There's a knock at the door; he can't rouse himself to answer, but it doesn't matter, because whoever it is will enter anyway. They always do, in the end.<p>

Ginny pushes the door open. It must be his imagination, but she still has that glow about her, that halo of sunshine that he saw through the glass. As she steps into the room and closes the door, her brightness dissipates leaving only her shadow, outlined in the gloom.

She makes for the window as if to open the curtains, then turns to him. "Harry."

He nods at her.

"Harry!" she repeats, a note of desperation in her tone that makes him want to wave, to tell her that yes, he sees her. He's even a tiny bit glad of it. He's just so very tired.

She sits down heavily on the bed. He remembers kissing her on his birthday, almost a year ago. "There's the silver lining I've been looking for," she murmured, and the kiss was the sweetest they'd ever shared, full of longing and pain and love.

How fitting that it was their last kiss. Sitting next to him now, he still feels that invisible barrier between them, like the window pane - even when she seizes his hand.

"Harry, I know you're tired." It's too dark to see her face clearly, but her voice is soft. "I know you're hurting. But I'm hurting, too. I'm trying to go on with things, but how can I, when you're shut up in here? How can I leave you here?"

In the darkness, she is as monochrome as everything else in the room; even her hair is reduced to a dull grey. She is in Harry's world. But her hands are warm against his skin.

"I want to talk to you, Harry," she says, her voice catching. "I want to tell you everything that happened while you were gone, and I want to hear everything you did. Everything you went through - at least, everything you want to tell me. I..." She squeezes his hand as if she can force the life back into him. "I don't want to intrude. But it hurts so much, trying to go about my day, knowing you're up here, hurting."

He shakes his head. "Not hurting," he manages. He swallows down the croakiness of disuse. "Doesn't hurt."

She leans closer, drops a tentative hand on his arm. "Then what?" she asks gently.

He closes his eyes and the dead swim around him. "Then what, Harry?" she repeats, and he looks at her again.

"They're with me, all the time," he says.

"Who?" Her grip on his arm is fierce now, but her tone remains soft. "Who's here?"

It's his imagination, but the parts of him that are touching her feel warmer and more alive than the rest of him. He licks his lips. "My mum and dad. Sirius. Remus. All of them."

"Harry." Her eyes are shining. "They're _not_ here. I'm sorry, I know you loved them - I can't imagine how much it must have hurt to lose them all."

"You don't understand," he says. "It doesn't hurt. They just...I can't seem to move away from them. I can't think of anything else."

Her hand on his arm feels so lovely. He lifts his free hand to cover it, and is suddenly aware that they are closer than they've been for a year, their faces inches apart. The glimmers in her eyes are tears, and in the darkness he can see her swallowing, see her wondering what to do. "I'm sorry," he adds, because it isn't fair to her. He has never been fair to her.

"Don't be sorry," she murmurs, leaning in until her breath cools his skin. "Just come back to me."

The memories that touched him at the window are closer now, and he squeezes his hand in hers. "I..." Her lips are trembling just beyond his own, and he thinks that perhaps, if he could just get across this next barrier, he might find his way back to her. But he can't see how to do so.

"Harry," she breathes, "come back to me."

Her lips brush over his, more a touch than a kiss, but it heals broken connections inside him, brings his nerves to life. He senses her watching, waiting for his reaction. Waiting for a sign that she can give him something, anything.

"Gin," he croaks, and as she leans in again his senses flare back to life, lighting the world in golds and reds. Suddenly he wants her all around him, and then her arms wrap him close: close and safe and real and alive. He feels lighter as he opens his mouth to her, remembering all those months he spent watching her on the map, longing for the day they could be together again.

Ginny's lips are soft and warm; she tastes like treacle tart and sunshine, and his hands are remembering their paths along her skin, tracing the neckline of her t-shirt, slipping into that gap at her waist where she loves to be touched. And for an instant they are lying by the lake at Hogwarts, snogging each other into a stupor of desire, and he _remembers_ how it felt to be alive.

"I missed you," he says, and she smiles and kisses him again.

Shortly she will draw back the curtains to let the sunshine in; she will open the door and lead him through it; she will help him through the next few hours, days, months. She will help him to live.

For now, he kisses her lips, her nose, the tears on her cheeks, and lets the memories flow: the instant of electric recognition after their first kiss, and the joy of exploring her body. Her laughter when he made a joke; her full-throated cheer when he caught the snitch. The floral scent of her hair; the way her eyes brightened when she saw him. _Come back to me_, she begged, and he did.

Harry is alive again.

* * *

><p>Notes: Written for the hg_silverlining summer fest on LJ, and originally posted there. The title and summary are taken from the song "Empty" by Ray LaMontagne. Thank you to flyingcarpet for beta-reading.<p> 


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